


Used 2 Be a Romantic

by Dredfulhapiness



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Kinda, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22090237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness
Summary: Eddie had never been sure that he believed in ghosts. Then he remembered Pennywise.He’d believe almost anything after that, and that was before he got up and walked away from his body.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 19
Kudos: 88





	Used 2 Be a Romantic

Eddie had never been sure that he believed in ghosts. As a child, his fear revolved more around the vehicle of death rather than the actual act of dying. There were moments, though, after his mother died, when he looked at Myra and wondered if he were looking at an apparition. 

_No one’s going to take care of you like I will..._

_In sickness and in health..._

Then he remembered Pennywise. 

He’d believe almost anything after that, and that was before he got up and walked away from his body. Before he’d followed the Losers out of the tunnel, screaming, begging for someone to fucking _help_ him, don’t just leave him there, he was okay, clearly, please. 

Richie was doing the same. Eddie felt his eyes sting as he watched them drag him away from Eddie’s corpse, back out into the street. 

“He’s still in there!” Richie shouted, and Eddie felt his bones ache below the house. His ears rang.

_Someone’s talking about you,_ he heard his mother say. 

“I’m right _here_ ,” he said (begged), but no one noticed, no one turned their heads, no one said, _shut up, Eddie Spaghetti,_ and Eddie wanted to cry, wanted to punch something in the way that always helped when he was younger. 

_He thrusts his fists against the post_

Eddie stared down at himself, at his hands, at the gaping hole in his spirit, at the world crumbling around him. He was in there-- his body was in there, settling in to rot. He could feel it, the house falling on him. It burned as his bones were snapped, bruised to dust. 

“R-R-Rich, it’s too late.”

“Maybe if it didn’t take you so damn long to say things you could have saved me _,_ ” Eddie snapped, and then immediately felt guilty. They’d made a pact, years ago, about not mocking Bill. Did death transcend that? Was he allowed to be a dick once he was ( _dead and gone_ ) invisible?

“There’s nothing you could have done,” Bev agreed. She’d taken position beside Richie, her hand joining the others in clutching at his bicep, holding him back. 

_and still insists he sees the ghosts_

\--

Eddie watched Richie cry over him and, like a rush, he understood. It all made sense. The hammock, the lean of his knee into Eddie’s, the avoidance of every school dance, every Valentine’s day, every expectation. 

And Eddie wished. Longed. Yearned. Put a hand on Richie’s shoulder and mourned with the rest of them. 

_I’m dead,_ he thought, and it meant something. Or, it meant something different than he had always thought it would. It meant something less sickly, less beeping and sterile and rotting flesh.

Maybe he was grateful for that. Pierced rather than diseased. Pennywise hadn’t granted his worst fear.

_The leper’s hand outstretched, holding out a pill, saliva dripping from its lips, face yellowed_

He was dead, and Bev and Ben were making out under the water, feet from where Stan had, 27 years before, pointed out a turtle that swam just below the dirty waves of the lake. If Eddie focused hard enough, he could feel the turtle too-- what it used to be. The memory of its soul, long returned to dust. 

_You know what they say about Derry..._

\--

“Richie?” Eddie watched him as he crouched on the bridge. But when Richie turned he walked straight through Eddie. He paused before getting off the bridge and looked back. His shoulders were taut and, for a second, Eddie thought that maybe he saw him, but his eyes scanned over him. Eddie swallowed.

He’d been hoping Derry would grant him this: one last sighting, a figure on a bridge, another haunting. 

Instead, it let him watch his best friend promising the things Eddie had only just remembered days before. The things he’d wished when he was fourteen evolved into the mind of an adult, and now the spirit of someone who had…

_Unfinished business,_ his brain whispered. 

Was that what this was? Or would he be stuck here when everyone else left Derry? Wandering? Left behind?

_Dead_.

Eddie gave the carved letters one last glance. He’d passed them so many times-- nearly every day for years. Maybe he’d seen it. Maybe he’d made a joke about it to Richie. He was having trouble remembering. Every memory he’d ever had had all crowded him at once, and he was struggling to parse through them all. Especially while he was standing (floating) here, in Derry, where all his memories had culminated into something bloody and sad and nostalgic.

\--

Standing outside the Inn felt a lot like standing outside the restaurant and finding out that Stan was dead. 

Except this time, instead of getting into his car and trying to haul ass, Richie stood like a statue on the sidewalk. Eddie watched him watch the others. Bev and Ben orbited each other like planets. Mike and Bill spoke in low voices, about plans to investigate Derry, about Mike coming to Thanksgiving, about what they were going to say if the cops called. 

The space where Stan should be was palpable-- Eddie assumed (hoped) the same about himself. 

“Richie,” Bev said. He looked at her, slightly green around the gills. “Come with us.” 

He just stared at her a second, processing. “I have a show tomorrow night,” he said. Eddie couldn’t tell if that was true or not. “I can’t.” 

They eyed him, untrusting, but Bev didn’t press. Richie’s knuckles were white where they clutched his bag. 

They left little by little. Bev and Ben first. Bill next. They all got in their cars and drove away from Derry. Eddie eyed his rental car, tucked beneath a tree in the corner of the parking lot so that it would be cooler when he got into it. 

_When he got into it_ : as if he’d ever get the chance. 

Richie was the last to leave. He could feel Mike’s gaze on him as he rummaged through his bag one last time, looking for another excuse to linger. 

“I’m sorry,” Mike said, “about Eddie. I know you two were close.” 

“We all were,” Richie said, finally pulling his keys from his bag. He said it with more contention than Eddie thought he’d meant to. His forehead was fraught with worry lines.

“And Stan,” Mike added, quieter. Eddie watched, rapt. Richie froze. Eddie could see the realization dawn in his eyes. Richie would never see Stan all grown up and walking and talking. He would never see Eddie as anything more than he had been. All of this was something he could never outgrow, or forget, and the two people he had known best (before, before) were gone. 

It made Eddie feel sick, so he could only imagine how Richie felt.

“Take care of yourself, Mike,” Richie said, and he let himself be pulled into another hug. 

“Keep in touch,” Mike answered. “I’m gonna miss you guys.” 

\--

Richie drove past the Neibolt house. There was already a construction crew to clear away the landmark. Eddie wondered how long it would take them to excavate his body. The others had reported it and they were just waiting to hear back that they’d found him, that he was no longer under rubble, that they could call Myra and tell her to call a funeral home because he’d fallen on a beam when the building collapsed around them. 

The final verdict was that it had been a sinkhole. One minute the ground had been there, the next it was collapsing in on itself. That’s how they explained it to the neighbors, anyway, how something could be there one second and gone the next. That was Derry for ya, evolving the situations so they seem normal. So missing kids were mundane. So killer clowns didn’t exist. 

Eddie felt short of breath.

Eddie didn’t breathe anymore.

\--

Richie stopped at the first gas station outside of Derry’s limits. He walked out with a carton of cigarettes and a grim expression. Eddie sat in the passenger seat and searched for his reflection in the side-view mirror. He never saw it. 

Eddie had expected music blaring from Richie’s speakers the way it had when they were kids. Classic rock rattling the seats. Cans of pop in the cup holders, Eddie putting a hand over them to keep them from spilling when Richie made a wild turn. Scolding, _You’re going to get us fucking killed, you asshat._ Hearing, _did you just call me an asshat? Is that a real word that just came out of your mouth? All the curse words in the world and you came up with ‘asshat?’_

(Eddie hadn’t longed for any of that since he’d left Derry, but now it was all coming back to him. Bev had moved to Portland right before school started, after they’d fought It the first time, but the rest of them had been stuck until after graduation. They’d spent a lot of time like this: driving from one end of town to the other, like ants trapped in a circle of ink on paper. Joking, laughing, inventing new car games (Richie’s favorite had been guessing the size of someone’s dick based on the car they drove). After Bowers had been locked up, they weren’t afraid to be out in public they way they had before, so the losers travelled in a pack in broad daylight.) 

The ride to New York was silent. 

\--

The act of coming home should have been like a ceremony for Richie: the relief of reaching out and finding the lightswitch without fumbling, the dropping of your bag, the dramatic sigh as you flop on your own couch and think, _home_.

Except Richie had already come home, and faced death, so this was an act of defiance. This was a runaway mission. This was…

Richie _did_ flop on the couch, but instead of sighing, he groaned like he was in pain. He leaned his head back, his eyes closed. 

For a very long time, he was quiet. 

From this height, Eddie couldn’t hear the sounds of traffic anymore. He thought about skyscrapers, and the danger they presented in a fire, and how you definitely wouldn’t want to live in a place without direct access to a fire escape (and that made Eddie’s blood curdle, too, because what if someone just climbed up the fire escape and into the window), and especially not alone when you sleep as heavily as Richie does, because what if the fire alarm went off and he didn’t hear? 

Eddie was so tired of being alone with his thoughts. 

When Richie finally moved, it was to stand up and go get a drink. He poured it without finesse. Whisky into a mug. Classy as always. 

Eddie wished that Richie could hear him laugh at that. 

\--

Richie found the letter from Stan when he went through his mail the next morning. He’d been flipping through it absently, throwing most things straight into the trash when he’d suddenly gasped for breath. Eddie looked over his shoulder at the return address. 

“Oh God,” he’d said out loud. Richie didn’t hear him. 

His fingers trembled as he fumbled to open the envelope. 

Richie read the letter, and then buried his face in his hands for a long time. Eddie ran a hand down his back-- not that it made a difference-- and tried to think of all the ways he would want to be comforted. That he needed to be comforted. 

He wondered where Stan was. Was he clinging to life, too? Following Patty around? Or was he… settled. Free. 

Eddie hadn’t seen any other ghosts. He didn’t know the rules for this. Could ghosts see each other? _Were_ there any other ghosts, or was he the last victim of It’s fading magic. Would he fade, too? Deflate the way Pennywise had? How long would it take? How could he have left Derry?

Was this the deadlights?

\--

Richie lived in New York, so Richie went to Eddie’s funeral. 

Myra didn’t know who he was at first. She was standing by the casket, black dress, veil, and everything, when he greeted her. 

“Are you one of his friends from work?” she asked. Her eyes were red and puffy. Eddie wondered if her tears were fake. He wondered if she actually cared that he was dead. He felt bad for wondering those things. He wondered if it mattered that he felt bad. 

“No,” Richie said, holding a hand out. “We grew up together. I wanted to stop by and say how sorry I am for--”

“Were you there?” Myra cut him off, her voice shrill. “Were you there when he died?” 

Richie froze, his arm extended. A few people were watching them. 

“Yes,” he said after a moment. “I was. It was… Horrible. I can’t even imagine how you’re--”

“This is your fault!” she cut him off. “If you assholes hadn’t had that meet up this never would have happened-- and what was he doing in that house anyway, my Eddie never would have gone in there on his own, he knows better!” 

Richie was surprisingly composed as he said, “I know. I’m so sorry, Myra.” 

Eddie could feel the regret coming off of him in waves. He didn’t bother telling her the same story he told the police. Instead of: _we went into the house for old time’s sake, we didn’t realize how unstable it was, we tried to get him out but it wasn’t safe_ , Richie just said, again, “I’m sorry.” 

A murmur swept through the funeral home. Eddie reached through Myra’s head, holding an arm out to Richie. It displaced her hair. Something loosened the wet forming at the corners of Richie’s eyes. 

“Myra,” Eddie wanted to say, a hand on her forearm, a Xanex between his lips, a hand on the steering wheel-- a foot in the game. A foot not in the closed coffin (it wasn’t open for the service. His body was too disfigured, too crushed and bent at all the wrong angles that it would have made the guests sick to look at. Not that there were many. Guests, that is. Ben and Bev were off yachting somewhere, Bill couldn’t take any more time off work, Mike was in Derry. In Derry. In Derry. These were Myra’s friends and family). “Don’t do this.” But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway-- she never listened to him, just like his mother never listened to him, just like the Losers would scoff when Eddie would tell them the dangers of their actions. 

_Throw some caution to the wind,_ Richie said once, cuffing him on the back of the head. Eddie remembered that, now. He could remember everything.

Remembering was a lot easier than living in the present, where guests stared at Richie as he waited, breath bated, for Myra to respond. 

“I think you should leave,” she said, her words coming out as a sob. 

Eddie thought about his mother when he broke his arm. The glare she’d given the Losers as she shoved him in the car was the same as the look Myra was giving Richie. Eddie put a hand on his shoulder. Richie couldn’t feel it. Nothing Eddie did meant anything. He was beginning to think that had been true when he was alive, too. 

“Okay,” Richie said. “I-I’m sorry. I’m so… I’m so sorry.” 

He left the funeral home in shame, a hand to the wall as he tried to steady himself. There were whispers around him as he left. Eddie wanted to cry for him-- wanted to cry _with_ Richie, because he was at his own funeral, and he didn’t recognize any of the people there. He’d only had shallow conversation with them over dinner. Discussed gardening techniques on New Year’s Eve. Listened to their distasteful political beliefs over Thanksgiving.

None of these people had even _known_ him. Except Richie.

Eddie felt something growing in his chest. Boiling. A simmer. 

Richie had a cigarette in the parking lot of the Arby’s next door. Eddie kept his eyes closed and tried to pretend that the scent of smoke still made him gag.

\--

Mike called Richie that night, while Richie was sitting in the dim, blue glow of his television. Some sitcom was playing, the laugh-track a desolate and grevious demand of _find me funny_ , but Richie wasn’t paying attention. 

When the phone rang it was in his hand, some game that Eddie vaguely recognized from Myra on the screen, waiting for him to make a move. 

It startled him. The location, _Derry, Maine_ scared him more. Richie picked up. 

“Hey, Mike,” he said, putting the phone on speaker. He grabbed his glass of whiskey from the coffee table and finished it off. 

“Richie,” Mike said. “How are you?”

He said it in the tone only Mike could really pull off-- that mixture of concern and curiosity. But also like he was waiting for bad news. Like he was biting his tongue. 

Richie knew what he was waiting for. They all knew the funeral was today because he’d told them, Eddie had watched him type out the group text 30 different ways before finally hitting send. 

None of them could make it. Eddie tried not to take it to heart (spirit). 

Bev’s had been the only excuse Richie bothered responding to when the texts started rolling in. 

_Ben’s helping me with my divorce_ her message had said, and Eddie had a feeling that Richie knew more about that than he did, because he managed a grim smile. 

_Let me know if you need backup,_ was all he’d sent back. 

“I’m fantastic,” Richie said wryly. 

“How was the funeral?” Mike stopped skirting around the subject. Richie stood and poured himself another drink before answering. 

“Myra didn’t take kindly to my presence.” 

“Who?”

“His wife.” The way he said it left a bitter taste in Eddie’s mouth. _His wife._

“Richie…” Mike started.

“You know, you assholes could have been there.” Richie wasn’t yelling, but he may as well have been because his tone made Eddie wince. 

“I know.” Mike didn’t bother arguing. “If I could have gotten off work--” 

“I had to do that by myself,” Richie said. “It’s Eddie for fuck’s sake, and you all didn’t come? It’s just like Stan’s--”

A pause. Richie’s eyes were closed. His chest was tight. He was bracing himself.

“What? Stan’s what?” 

Richie sighed. “I have to go, Mike. I’m getting another call.” 

“Hang on. I wanted to ask you about Thanksgiving. Bill is--”

“I really have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

Richie didn’t look proud about hanging up on Mike, but he didn’t look worked up about it either. He put his phone on the counter, bent his head like he was praying. 

“I’m sorry,” he said to the air, but Eddie’s ear rang. Richie was talking to him. 

\--

Halfway through Richie’s tour, Eddie could recite his usual script by heart. 

“So I went back to my hometown,” he always started, “Not willingly-- Don’t say ‘aww’ I was _tricked_ . Someone told me it would be a good idea and I _believed_ them. _Never_ go back to your hometown. All the places you used to smoke weed? It’s not nostalgic to go visit them, it’s just sad and dirty. And you know the worst part? People I grew up with still live there. Which is fucking bonkers, because this is _not_ a good town. This town is where you go to die.”

Eddie watched him talk about Derry and it made him sad. Somewhere, deep in the throes of _home_ , he felt his bones ache. 

The first time Richie had made this joke, it had been unscripted. His manager, or agent, or whoever it was that followed Richie around and told him how funny he was, had put a hand on Richie’s elbow before he pushed through the curtain.

“You remember the joke this time?” he’d asked, and Richie-- eyes hollow, shoulders bruised, cheeks grazed-- had just grinned the widest, fakest grin that Eddie had ever seen, and strutted onto the stage. 

Eddie watched from the wings, still unsure whether anyone else could see him. Worried that the lights would be what finally did it, finally illuminated him.

_Don’t go into the light!_ He thought with a wry grin. Then, _Maybe that would work._

“Thank you. Thank you so much. Wow.” He gazed out into the crowd, squinting against the bright stage lights. “It’s so great to be here. My, uh. My girlfriend caught me masturbating to her friend’s facebook page the other day,” he said. 

Eddie closed his eyes and tried to picture Richie as a child. He thought about the stack of CDs that sat in the corner of his childhood bedroom, half of them collections of jokes by comedians: Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal. Eddie imagined him sitting in bed, his eyes closed, listening to them crow their jokes to an audience in Madison Square Garden, or Chicago, or somewhere notably _not_ Derry. 

(“That’s gonna be me one day,” he’d told Eddie, thrusting his finger toward the TV, where Howie Mandel was galloping around stage, giant prop-glove flapping in the wind. 

“Acting like an idiot onstage?” Eddie asked. He grabbed a piece of candy from the bowl in Richie’s lap. It was two days after Halloween, and they were finishing up the last of the leftover candy on the couch in Richie’s basement. Outside, the air was already frigid, a few puddles frozen. 

“It wouldn’t be acting,” Richie said with a shrug. “I’m just an idiot.”

“No arguments here.”) 

Richie trailed off in the middle of a thought. Beside Eddie, the agent-manager-hype-man tensed. 

“I went home this past week,” Richie said. “Which, for anyone who hasn’t been home in a while-- or, for the newly-minted hopeful 20-somethings that just got here and haven’t gotten the chance to go home yet, it’s fucking weird. It’s really, really fucking weird. You know how they tried to reboot _Twin Peaks_ and just made it a disgustingly quiet Kuberick film? That’s what going back to your hometown feels like.” 

And even though he was off-script, the audience laughed. Eddie could hear the particleboard of the clipboard cracking. He didn’t take his eyes off of Richie, upright, shoulders tensed with a mixture of panic and confidence. Oil and water. 

“And all my old friends-- oh my God. They’re all married now, so it’s _my wife_ this, and _my wife_ that.” Eddie’s nose crinkled at the Borat impression. “My one friend, he’s a writer-- writes these horror novels that are only scarily bad-- he got married to this actress that looks _exactly like_ his childhood crush. And the weirdest part? His childhood crush is one of my best friends, who was _also_ there this past week, and no one said anything! No one called him out on that! And my other friend had to keep excusing himself to take calls from his wife. At least five time a day: _did you take your medicine? Are you driving safely? I asked Alexa what the weather was going to be like there and it’s cold, but your winter jacket is here, are you going to buy another one?”_

As he spoke about Myra, Richie’s face grew cold. He cleared his throat. 

“That’s why I refuse to get married. If I wanted someone nagging me, I’d tweet something racist and wait for my publicist to call me.” The clipboard actually _did_ snap in half here. Maybe this guy was a publicist. Eddie had never known the difference. 

_He did it,_ Eddie thought, and when the audience applauded him off the stage, Eddie clapped too. _I knew he could do it_.

“Rich,” the agent-manager-publicist hissed as Richie stepped off the stage. “What happened out there, man?” 

“Just trying out some new material,” Richie said. He sounded nonchalant, but Eddie saw the way his fingers fidgeted the way they used to when they were kids. When he would lie, or was anxious, or was planning to cheat in a card game. Eddie could picture him, reaching for Bev’s Monopoly money while she’s distracted talking to Stan. Eddie smacking his hand away. Cards being fumbled, money in the air. Anarchy. Breathing heavily, all of them collapsed on the ground, stomachs in pain from laughing, surrounded by the communist-adjacent remains of their game night.

Eddie could see everything at once.   
  


The maybe-manager followed Richie through the dark wings. “I thought we were going to wait to try anything new,” he said through a grit-teeth smile. 

_I don’t know why,_ Eddie thought. _He was funny._

“They liked it, didn’t they?” Richie said. He grabbed a bottle from a cooler. Some kind of sparkling water.

Eddie tried to picture Richie drinking sparkling water as a kid and it made him giggle. It was replaced with the memory of Richie being too improper to even eat a rocket pop the right way, the red and blue tye-dying his t-shirt. That wasn’t the same man downing half a bottle of Perrier with a grimace. 

He kept telling the joke. He told it in Chicago, LA, some run-down high school in south Jersey. And for the most part, people liked it. “It felt more sincere,” one review said, “than some of Tozier’s more recent jokes about his sex life and travel fatigue. He seems back in-touch with his fanbase.” 

\--

The new neighbor moved in a month after Richie’s return to New York. He was a grouchy old man named Mr. Pesavento. He lived across the hall, and it took two days for Richie to finally knock on his door and ask him to please, for the love of god, shut his dog up because he’d been barking nonstop for 48 straight hours and Richie wanted to sleep. 

Mr. Pesavento came up to Richie’s shoulders and had a permanent frown. He glared up at him, squinting against the harsh fluorescent lighting of the hallway. He pointed to Richie’s door, which was slightly ajar. 

“You live there?” he asked in a thick, eastern European accent that Eddie could see Richie mentally filing away. Richie nodded. “Okay.” And he shut the door in Richie’s face. 

Richie balked. 

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered under his breath, and he returned to his own apartment. 

It took another week for Richie to meet the dog that had been keeping him awake at night. He was closing his front door when he heard the telltale pitter-patter of paws on carpet. He looked up and froze. Eddie followed his gaze. 

“Mr. Pesavento!” Richie said, his voice tight. He kept his gaze trained on the Pomeranian, its little head tilted as it regarded Richie. 

Mr. Pesavento looked at Richie, at the dog, and back at Richie. “What?” he asked, “You afraid of dogs?” 

“Uh,” Richie said eloquently. “No?” 

But he was afraid of this dog. Eddie could feel it. He cradled his keys like a knife, eyed it warily. 

_It’s just a dog,_ Eddie wanted to remind him. 

But how could he? Even if he were standing there, in the flesh, he couldn’t have guaranteed that. Derry is a fucked up town, and it left a fucked up imprint on Richie’s life. Eddie knew what he was dreading: in 27 years he’d get another call, see a missing child poster on the television, be forced to hobble back, again, to the rubble of the life he’d left behind for the second time.

Or now. What if It had clung to his suitcase like bed bugs and followed him home? What if It was still taunting him? Still watching him? Still a fluffy dog waiting to transform into something gruesome and vile and… 

Mr. Pesavento grumbled something under his breath in a language neither Richie nor Eddie spoke, and he pushed past Richie and fumbled with his own lock. With the hallway clear, Richie deflated a little bit. He clutched at his chest, took deep breaths, tried to get himself under control. 

\--

Richie’s material never came up in conversation offstage. He didn’t _lie_ to the people around him-- never mentioned the girlfriend to his friends or coworkers. They all lived very in-the-moment, shallow lives. They teased each other about things they couldn’t change, jokes at the expense of the others around them. There was no connection. No, _Did your girlfriend really just break up with you? Are you okay?_ No, _What did you go home for?_

They all just assumed they were all lying. Or, that they didn’t want to talk about it, and that’s why they’d turned it into a joke in the first place.

They’d all made their coping mechanisms their careers, and their careers their method of conversation.

_How lonely,_ Eddie thought, because he knew how it felt. The people at his funeral had been the people he’d known. Shallow, worried, hooked on one vice or another. One of them would die, and the suburb would whisper for a few days, send a casserole or two, and then life would go back to normal. 

Richie knew these people about as well as Eddie had known his next door neighbor: through meaningless small talk, and a few beers, and whispers of rumors through the thicket of grape vines around them. 

\--

The second time Eddie died, it was over Richie’s bed. 

He’d been pacing the floor of Richie’s bedroom, trying to notice something new about the painted walls, trying to see if maybe there was a book whose title he hadn’t already read, trying to kill time until Richie woke up and he could _do_ something. 

And then he was above Richie, half-kneeling, his hands on Richie’s shoulders, shaking him. 

“Richie,” he heard himself say. “Listen. I think I got it, man. I think I killed it.”

Below him, Richie opened his eyes, wide, his mouth gaping in a silent scream. His fingers clutched at the bedsheets. 

_He sees me,_ Eddie thought, and then all he felt was pain. There was nothing piercing through his body, but there was a bleeding hole nonetheless. Eddie felt the blood drip from his mouth, watched it land on Richie’s chest. 

Richie whimpered. He was pressed against the headboard, eyes welling up, and Eddie heard himself say,

“Richie,” all broken and pained, and then he collapsed, and Richie was breathing heavily, and whining, and when Eddie finally came back to himself, when the hole stopped seeping blood and there was no more pain, Richie couldn’t see him anymore. 

The hole was a little bit bigger after that. 

Richie didn’t sleep anymore that night, but it didn’t put an end to Eddie’s fevered pacing.

\--

Eddie thought that maybe Richie saw him sometimes. When he walked past a mirror, sometimes his gaze lingered a little too long on the spot Eddie would be standing. Sometimes he’d do the same thing in the street-- stare at where Eddie was. But then he’d blink, and sigh, and keep moving. Eddie wanted to scream. 

The feeling grew. Ached. Cabin fever, but with freedom to roam. An itch under skin that doesn’t exist. 

\--

When Richie met the other comedian, Eddie thought _this is it._ He watched Richie bicker with him, bounce jokes off of him, and he watched the other comedian throw it right back. They met at a party, and by the end of the night they were on the roof of the other comedian’s building, sharing a bottle of rum in a paper bag. 

His name was Jay. He was dressed far nicer than Richie, his shirt buttoned up to the top, and Eddie saw Richie fidget when he saw him, watched him try to straighten the collar on his ugly Hawaiian shirt. 

“You look like you dressed for a wedding,” Richie said when his manager introduced them.

“Thanks,” Jay replied, “You look like my drunk uncle on a cruise.” 

“Oh, wow,” Richie said, “that’s actually the exact note I gave my stylist, so thank you. I’ll let Jamie know she did a great job.” 

“Yeah, and, uh, pass on the contact information, please.” Richie tilted his head. Jay, deadpan, “my dad’s looking to find a wife when he goes to Hawaii, so…”

“Oh,” Richie said, “Amber’ll be perfect for him, then. Let me Airdrop her number.” 

They went their separate ways as Richie chased a drink. 

One of Richie’s college friends introduced them in front of the buffet. Richie had a napkin working as a makeshift bib as he absolutely housed some pigs in a blanket. He stuck his free hand out. 

“I think we met last week,” he told Jay. “You work at the strip club, right?” 

“And you only tipped in quarters,” Jay agreed. “I still have some bruises from you.” 

“Well you weren’t good enough for silver dollars,” Richie said, tongue in cheek. “Not enough range of motion in the hips.” 

“It was the perfect range of motion in the hips for your mom last night,” Jay said, and Richie went slack-jawed. Eddie laughed gleefully. 

“Well, that’s a little weird,” Richie said, “because my mom’s dead so you just confessed to a crime.” 

Someone waved Jay over. He disappeared into the throng of people. 

They met for the third time while Richie was using a toothpick with an olive on it as a fake cigarette. He was on the balcony, fiddling with his pack of _actual_ cigarettes, when Jay sidled beside him, a lighter already out. 

“I’ll give you a light if you let me bum one,” he said. 

“These things will kill you,” Richie warned. He took the speared olive from between his lips and handed it to Jay. Jay stared at it for one second. Two. When he looked up, Richie was holding a real cigarette out for him. 

“So I’ve heard.” He held the lighter up to the cigarette between Richie’s pursed lips, then lit his own. 

“So, you a comedian?” Richie leaned his forearms against the guard rail. Jay leaned his back against it. 

“To some people,” Jay said. “Most people just think I’m annoying.” 

Richie guffawed. 

It didn’t take much longer for them to sneak out.

\--

“Where are you from?” Jay asked into the quiet-for-New-York night. Richie tensed. Eddie was impressed they’d gotten this far into the night before the question was asked. “You can’t say here. I can hear your accent.” 

Richie snorted and pried the bag of rum from Jay’s hand. “That obvious, huh?” he took a swig. “Maine. Right near Bangor.” 

“I don’t think anyone knows where Bangor is,” Jay said. 

“And anyone would be lucky,” Richie said. His face was red from the alcohol. His hair was displaced from the wind. 

“Ahh,” Jay said. “You’re one of _those_ guys.” 

Richie’s eyes moved to him before his head did. “What do you mean _one of those guys_?” He reached for the drink, but Jay pulled it just out of his reach. 

“One of those guys who trash talks your hometown,” Jay said, not implying anything. 

“I don’t owe my hometown shit,” Richie said, because he was drunk and his tongue was looser than usual. 

Jay raised an eyebrow. “Nothing?”

“What?”

“You don’t owe it _anything_? Really? No friends? No fun high school memories?”

Richie grimaced. This time, when he reached for the rum, Jay handed it right over. Richie was thinking about him— Eddie could tell. When he looked down, a penny was staring right back up at him. 

“It’s a complicated relationship,” Richie finally said, and Jay giggled. 

Eddie liked Jay. 

\--

For months, Eddie had been watching Richie dodge calls from the other losers. He hadn’t spoken to Mike since the funeral. At least, nothing more than the occasional text into the group chat, an excuse for why he can’t make it to Thanksgiving, a congratulations for the job offer in Florida. 

Eddie wanted to smack him every time he denied a call. He wanted to remind Richie how much he would love to be in a position to be denying calls (and maybe he would be, if he’d lived. Maybe Myra would have seen how fucked up he’d been when he came home and she’d have snuck onto his phone and blocked their numbers, maybe he could have been convinced to drop contact and forget that alien clowns exist. Maybe, maybe). 

When he did answer, it was for Bev. 

Bev with her dirty mouth, cigarette smoke, and loving smile. 

“I saw a guy at Starbucks today who looks exactly like you,” she said. She was walking through her and Ben’s house, the background shifting in the video call as she moved, “and I thought it would be funny to go up to him and ask for his autograph, right? So went up to him and I said _oh my god, you’re the trashmouth right? I’m a huge fan. Can I get a picture?_ And he turned around and just looked at me like I was absolutely crazy….”

She blabbered on, giddy. Bev had as much talent bullshitting a conversation as Richie. 

And Eddie saw him relax, just a little bit, and the itch got just a little bit worse.

\--

Jay got Richie a Christmas gift. 

“We’ve been friends for long enough,” he said, even though it had only been six months. Eddie wondered if he was thinking about all the nights Richie had spent sleeping on his couch. (Eddie wondered if he knew how many times Eddie had died over the couch. _Six_ , and it left less of him each time). 

“This is embarrassing,” Richie said, pulling his hands reluctantly out of his pockets to take the bag. “I didn’t get you anything” 

\--

Eddie died again. This time in the back of a taxi, contorted to fit the dimensions. Richie didn’t yell this time, just opened his mouth in a soundless scream and stared, even after Eddie had sunk back into the seat, when he was no longer visible, no longer bleeding-- but just a little bit less than he was before. 

The taxi driver dropped him off, and Richie threw a handful of bills at him and backed out of the car, his breathing short. 

\--

“Hey.” Jay pulled Richie in for a hug. They lingered, just a bit too long, before pulling out their chairs and sitting down. “I wanna ask you something.”

“I’m flattered, but I’m already engaged,” Richie said. “I forgot to tell you, but I’m gonna be your stepdad.” 

“My mom’s more into the puss,” Jay said without skipping a beat. “I’m being serious.” 

“That’s never something you wanna hear a comedian say.” Richie took a sip of his water. 

“They greenlit my show.” Jay stared at Richie with wide, expectant eyes. Richie choked on his water, spit it back out into the cup. 

“Are you serious?” He asked. “That’s fantastic, man. Congrats.”

“Yeah,” Jay agreed, “It is. I’m gonna be on a sitcom! I head to LA at the end of the month.” 

Eddie watched the realization strike Richie. He didn’t stop smiling, but it grew stiff and forced. Eddie recognized it because it was the same smile Richie had given him so many times, back before Eddie understood who Richie really was, or who Eddie really was, and it made his metaphorical heart ache. He felt the pain in his spectre. 

“You might want to bring a gas mask,” Richie said, “it’s smoky out there.” He opened his menu and held it just above the table. He was looking at it, but his eyes weren’t moving.

“I’m more worried about rent,” Jay said. He fidgeted with his napkin. “It might be cheaper if I had a roommate.”

“What, are you going to post an ad on Craigslist?” Richie asked. He waved his hand to frame an invisible headline, “annoying comedian looking for roommate to test mediocre jokes on.” 

“I was thinking more: two annoying comedians live in a comically small apartment for an outrageous amount of money,” Jay countered. 

“Sounds like a terrible sitcom,” Richie said. 

“Wanna be my costar?” 

“Are you asking me to move in with you?” Richie put his menu down, ruffled enough to stop putting up the barriers that Eddie was used to seeing him. 

It startled Eddie-- and he was a ghost. Nothing should startle him. 

“It’s economic,” Jay said. 

“It’s 3,000 miles away.” 

“You could do stand-up there,” Jay said. He leaned slightly over the table. His hand reached out, like he was going to take Richie’s hand, but instead settled it right beside the cuff of Richie’s jacket. “Maybe break into acting-- or improv? You did improv in college, right?”

“Who _didn’t_ do improv in college?” Eddie didn’t recognize the tone of Richie’s voice. Soft, but raspy. Annoyed, but not at Jay-- at least, Eddie didn’t think so. He tried to think back to when they were kids, tried to put Richie’s pain into perspective, but his search turned up empty. 

“Think about it,” Jay said, “no more winters, no more Jersey drivers…” 

“No more Mr. Pesavento.” Richie smiled wryly. Eddie watched the wheels turn in his head. 

Eddie recognized the voice now-- it was the same voice Richie used when Eddie had told him about Elizabeth Sterling agreeing to go to homecoming with him junior year. An ecto-lump formed in his throat. 

_Say something,_ he wanted to scream. _Be happy._

“Is that a yes?” Jay asked. Eddie saw the hope in his eyes. 

Richie sighed, shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “My whole life’s here, I can’t just get up and leave.”

_But you did before,_ Eddie thought. _When you left Derry. You can do it again._

“I appreciate the _Odd Couple_ suggestion, but I’m not an LA kind of guy.” 

Jay looked like he wanted to argue, then he looked hurt. Like he’d been lied to, or tricked, or wounded. Eddie’s wound hurt. 

\--

Mike called when Richie was on his fourth glass of whiskey. 

  
  


“Are you drunk?” Mike asked. 

“What’s it to ya?” Richie asked, and it was one of his old, retired voices from their childhood. The cowboy. 

“I thought we talked about you cutting back,” Mike said, void of judgement and full of concern. Richie grimaced. 

“A guy can’t have a drink every once in a while?”

“Richie.”

“Mike, I appreciate the concern, man, but I’ve been taking care of myself for 27 years.” 

Mike sighed on the other end of the line. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Me taking care of myself?”

“Why you’re drinking.”

Richie let his glass clink against the table. He closed his eyes. Eddie wondered what he was picturing, what he was thinking about; was it the restaurant? Was it the look of hurt in Jay’s eyes? Did Richie feel betrayed, or did he feel like a betrayer? Or did he feel like he’d broken 4 mirrors and he was so, so close to freedom? Just one more year. One more shard.

“Not particularly.” 

There was a long stretch of silence. Eddie thought, _What now?_

“I’m heading to Ben and Bev’s for Easter,” Mike said finally. “You should try to come. It’d be nice to see you.” 

“Aye aye, captain,” Richie slurred.

“I’m serious, Rich-- we all miss you. You should keep in touch more.” He didn’t sound judgemental, or angry. He just sounded like Mike. Normal, loving, concerned Mike.

Richie swallowed. His eyes were still closed. 

“I’ll see about Easter,” he managed, his voice thick.

\--

Eddie stopped to wonder if Richie Tozier really was his unfinished business. Started to wonder if maybe he was Richie Tozier’s unfinished business. What was he supposed to be doing here? Watch his childhood best friend drink his liver away? He couldn’t interact with the world around him, or whisper subliminal messages in Richie’s ear while he slept. 

He just had to be here, watching. Waiting for something to happen, something to send him home.

“Let me go,” he said to the back of Richie’s head, but Richie didn’t even twitch. Didn’t acknowledge how much this was tearing Eddie up, too. To be here. To be _nothing_. 

Eddie swiped his hand across the counter. A sound of frustration ripped from his throat, guttural, and tired and--

Something crashed. Shattered. When Eddie looked up, Richie was staring at where his cereal bowl had been. There was just a trail of milk on the counter. Broken ceramic on the floor. 

Richie shivered. Managed a hoarse “okay” into the air. To no one.

_Eddie’s ears rang._

Eddie stared at his hands. Still transparent. He tried to lean on the wall and slipped through. He felt sick. The simmering didn’t go away, though. It was no better. He still felt like crawling out of his skin, tearing it away from bone until he felt like he’d _done_ something. Compulsive boredom. 

_I’ve already crawled out of my skin,_ Eddie thought desperately, _what else is left for me here?_

\--

“Are you there?” Richie asked that night as he laid in bed. “Eddie?” 

Eddie watched him watch the ceiling: not many shadows passed by this high up. It wasn’t like back in Derry where there were always headlights, or trees, or birds. Here it was just the light pollution-- soft and pastel on the white walls. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said, but Richie heard nothing. 

“You can leave,” Richie said. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said, and when the room was silent in reply, he regretted speaking. If he knew why he was here he’d be gone by now. Maybe he wouldn’t be in Heaven (he wasn’t sure he deserved that), but he’d be away from this mundanity. 

_Unless this_ is _Hell,_ he thought, and he wished he’d brought his inhaler to the afterlife. 

\--

“I was that kid with really weird friends. I know,” he said as the audience chuckled, “big shocker.” 

“But I was! I’m from a really small town, so everyone knew each other, and everyone knew how weird we all were, so we didn’t really have any other friends.” He laughed into the mic, a short bark. “We had my friend Big Bill, who had the worst stutter in New England. Real bad. Think Porky Pig meets a sixth grader in a creative writing class who just learned how to write a stutter— that was Big Bill.” 

Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Now, Big Bill was the leader of our merry band of misfits. I was the hot one, obviously—“ when people laughed at that, Richie pulled a face. Dramatic. Wounded. “Thanks for that boost of confidence.” Eddie snorted. 

“But my closest friend was Eddie,” he said, and Eddie felt that familiar ringing in his ear. “And Eddie was the biggest germaphobe you’ll ever meet. Fuck Howie Mandel: I once watched Eddie use an entire bottle of hand sanitizer on _one leg_ because he’d tripped over a toilet in the junkyard.”

“What were you doing in the junkyard?” Someone in the audience yelled. Richie’s head turned. This was the disadvantage of smaller venues: the misconception that it was a conversation rather than storytime. 

“Oh, sorry, do you wanna tell the punchline?” Richie asked, his voice lilting up. “That’s where we would hang out, dude. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. You either went to the junkyard or you got beat up outside the arcade, take your pick. We also swam in shit water, man. It was the eighties-- no one gave a fuck about their kids.” 

\--

“What do you know about ghosts?” Richie leaned back in his seat. He was nursing a cup of coffee in a corner booth of a 24-hour diner. There was a piece of pie in front of him, but he hadn’t even made a move to touch it-- he’d just watched the whipped cream melt. Faded neon lights came from the window. People were still passing. New York City. 

Mike groaned. The sound of bedsprings.

_He was asleep,_ Eddie thought, and guilt pooled in his heart. 

“Richie? What time is it?”

“It’s, like, 2 here. I’m not sure about there.” 

“We’re in the same time zone, Rich,” Mike yawned. “I’m in Florida, not Texas.” He was quiet for a moment. “Why are you asking me about ghosts?”

Richie picked up his fork. Stabbed his piece of pie a few times. His lips were set into a tight line. 

“I keep seeing him, man,” Richie said finally, and his voice shattered. Eddie’s gaze bore holes into the table.

“Who--”

“Eddie.” 

Mike let out a long, loud breath. 

“He keeps-- I thought it was just nightmares, at first. But it started happening while I’m awake, and a fucking bowl went flying across my fuckin’ kitchen the other night, and I don’t-- I don’t know how to--”

“Hey, hey. Hey. Calm down.” Richie took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes. 

“What are you seeing?” And Mike managed to be calm as Richie explained, in detail, Eddie’s death, over and over. When he finished, Richie was trembling, his voice was hoarse. Eddie busied himself with trying to pick up a fork.

_If he could throw the bowl…_

“It sounds like he’s echoing,” Mike said. 

“What?”

“Echoing. It’s-- ghosts sometimes, they start re-living their deaths if they’ve been on earth for too long.”

“Echoing,” Richie tested. “Why… Why is he… still here?” 

_You know what they say about Derry._

“He died, Mike, I thought that at least he was… That he would be--” Richie was struggling. Eddie put a hand on his. 

_I did too,_ he thought, and the anger flared up again. He _should_ have passed on. He should be in heaven, or hell, or _nothing_ if that’s what happened when you died, but he shouldn’t still be here. Lingering. _Echoing_. 

“I don’t know,” Mike said, and he sounded tired. Maybe because it was so late. Maybe because he’d left all this behind. Eddie felt guilty. “It could be anything-- unfinished business, something about Derry, something about _him_. I’ll look into it, but…”

“But?”

“I’ll look into it, Rich. I’ll get back to you.”

\--

The first time Richie said it out loud was at a poker game. He sat, surrounded by friends who weren’t family, their eyes all trained on each other suspiciously as they looked for hints that the others were lying. 

The losers had never played poker. They all knew each other too well for that, knew how eyes twitched when someone was lying, how lips flipped, briefly, at the deliverance of good news. 

But these were comedians, and their job was lying in a way that no one _knew_ you were lying. So they played like everyone was a suspect. Like telling one too many stories about your wife meant you were bluffing, or like a stutter meant something other than a stutter, or like a joke meant…

“Straight,” Richie said, putting his cards face-up on the table. 

“Unlike you,” someone said. 

“You’re right about that,” Richie said. He didn’t mean to say it. Eddie didn’t think so. But he’d said it too un-Richie-like for it to have been a joke. Too serious. His hand hovered over his cards. Eddie could see the regret in the way his jaw tensed, the way his eyes didn’t budge from where he was making eye contact with the Joker in his hand of cards.

A few of them looked up. Some of them didn’t. All of the others who had been holding out folded. 

“What are you looking at us like that for?” Someone-- one of the older guys, Eddie thought his name was something dumb, like Marv-- said. “You’re in the industry. Everyone’s gay-something. Now take your fuckin’ money.” 

The muscles in Richie’s back loosened. He hesitated, then gathered the chips from the center of the table. The conversation moved on without him. Eddie put a hand on his back. 

\--

He didn’t say it publicly in an interview, or a tweet, or even a late-night, drunken facebook post.

He said it onstage. Under the influence of prying eyes, and confidence, and bright lights.

(and it would be the bright lights that would kill him.)

(no, it would be the bright lights that would kill Eddie. Under the bright lights, Richie was thriving.)

“I got bullied a lot as a kid for being gay,” he said. There was an awkward silence. “Where I’m from, that was the best insult they could come up with. There was nothing, _nothing_ worse than being a guy who likes guys. So they used that insult for everyone. But here’s the thing: if _everyone_ in the town other than the bullies are gay… doesn’t that mean _they’re_ the ones that should be bullied for being weird? We should have turned around and started bullying them for being straight. Hey you! You like titties? Get out of this fucking town, hetero!” 

The audience laughed. 

“I was the only one in my friend group who was actually gay. Which, if you know them-- it’s actually kinda a shocker,” He prattled on. Someone whooped. “And, you know, when I was a kid I never really thought about…” Richie trailed off. His mouth opened slightly, realization dawning on his face. “I,” he said, but it sounded more like the beginning of a question, “just told you all I’m gay, didn’t I?” 

The audience giggled, hesitant. 

“Uh,” Richie said, clamming up. Sweat was forming on his brow. His jaw worked, but no sound was coming out as he stared out at the shapeless faces of the crowd. “Y-you know,” he managed weakly, “I’ve never… told anyone that before.” He shook his head, pushed his hair back, paced a little bit, the mic cord dragging behind him like a trail of breadcrumbs. 

“Probably weird for you all to hear that after I just told a joke about the time my girlfriend wanted to try a different page of the Kama Sutra every day leading up to Christmas like an advent calendar.” His voice was high and strained. Eddie watched from the wings with wide eyes. Richie was freaking out, majorly. Like, borderline meltdown and there was nothing Eddie could do to help him. “I promise that wasn’t entirely made up: that was actually my boyfriend in college. For the actual day of Christmas his gift to me was a sloppy blow job, but I had an allergic reaction to the candy he’d been sucking on before and I ended up needing to go to the ER for three hours. If you’ve never had to ask a doctor why your dick is swelled up like a water balloon, I’m jealous of you.”

\--

For the first day, he was trending on Twitter. His name number three on the explore page, half of the top tweets saying something along the lines of _thank god I thought Richie did something bad but it turns out he’s just gay like the rest of us_.

The texts rolled in. Other comedians, his publicist, journalists from Buzzfeed, and the losers. 

Bev was the first one to say something, in the form of a midnight facetime call. 

“Tell me why,” she said, as soon as he picked up, “I had to find out you’re gay from a _Buzzfeed quiz_?” she demanded. 

“From a--”

“Are you ‘straight’ Richie Tozier, or ‘Gay’ Richie Tozier?” she read off her iPad. “Would you be a good boyfriend for Richie Tozier? Top ten gay jokes you never noticed in The Trashmouth’s comedy specials?”

“Okay,” he said, chuckling “Okay, I get it.” 

“How come you never said anything?” She asked, and her voice was so sincere it hurt. Richie leaned back against his headboard. 

“I wasn’t sure how everyone would react,” he said-- lied-- quietly. “And I wasn’t ready to go public, so I figured I didn’t need to…”

Richie closed his eyes. Eddie wondered what he was imagining. Was it the name carving, or was it something else? Something Derry in nature? Something internal?

“Richie you dumbass,” Bev said fondly, “We love you.” 

The others said about the same: Bill sent his congratulations, Mike joked about finding Richie a nice Florida guy, Ben sent a postcard with a rainbow on it. 

“That’s all that’s left,” Richie said to his apartment when he read it. 

And then the world shut up about it. His twenty-four hours passed and it wasn’t a big deal. He wasn’t beat up by Henry Bowers. The world didn’t collapse around him like ( _an abandoned building_ ) an avalanche. Richie lived to love another day.

\--

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Bev leaned over the table, her lips set in a grin. 

“No,” Richie said, unamused.

“Do you have someone that you _want_ to be your boyfriend?” She asked.

“No. Did you come all the way to New York just to ask about my relationships?”

“Yes.” 

Actually, she was in town for a conference, it was just perfect timing to see, as Bev had said in a sing-song voice over the phone, _Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier’s sold out show at Madison Square Garden._ And, okay, that had made Richie smile, and when he drove home from rehearsal that night he hummed along to some gawdy pop song on the radio _Hey look Ma I made it_ and he made sure there would be a seat for her. 

But this-- this interrogation-- hadn’t been a part of the plan. 

Richie rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time for a relationship right now.” 

“Do you have one of those dating apps?” Bev asked. “I always wanted to try them.”

“No, you don’t.” 

He did. He’d spent a while the night before scrolling through his options. He’d open the app, swipe for a little bit, and then close the app again, as if in a panic. As if reconsidering all of his life decisions. 

“Let me see,” Bev said. 

“No,” Richie said. 

“Richie, give me your phone or I’m going to tweet that you said something really offensive to me.” 

He narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?” She opened Twitter on her phone. “I’ll tell the entire world about the time you screamed at a kid when we went out to dinner.”

“No one can confirm,” Richie said, “that kid is dead.”

He winced as soon as he said it. So did Bev. 

“Rich,” she said in her stern-Bev voice. “Give me your phone.” 

Maybe it was regret over the joke about the kid, but Richie slid his phone across the table to her. Bev picked it up and started scrolling. After a few seconds, she pulled a face.

“What?” Richie asked, stealing a fry off of her plate while she was occupied. 

“There’s…” She pulled her lips together in a poorly-disguised smile, “Well, there’s a lot of penises.” 

Richie snorted into his water. It splashed onto the table, which just made him laugh harder. Bev had to be the adult and ask for more napkins-- but even she was giggling. 

Eddie watched them, and he felt like a kid again.

(Or maybe he just felt like he was watching a movie. It didn’t feel real. None of this did anymore. The hole in his abdomen was twice as large as it had started, and he felt like he wasn’t making any progress toward becoming whole again-- if that was even an option, that is.)

\--

_Hey, man. I saw you trending on Twitter. Relieved you didn’t commit a felony. I’m going to be in town next month if you wanted to get a drink and catch up,_ the text from Jay read. 

Richie didn’t answer it. Eddie watched him read it and turn his screen off. Eddie’s wound hurt. It only ever did that before (what had Mike called it) he echoed, before he died again. 

“I want to go,” Eddie said, “please let me go.”

\--

It came up in interviews. Ellen considered it a point of bonding. She invented a dating game just for Richie: a mix between the Dating Game and the Newlywed game where Ellen asked questions and guests had to write down the answer they best thought fit Richie. What kind of shampoo he used, the most annoying thing about him, his favorite book.

“You act like I read,” he joked, and then nearly choked when the guy had flipped the board and it said _Playgirl_. 

Jimmy Fallon laughed over the story of the time Richie was gay. Some story about childhood friends-- his first love, just fake enough that Eddie wouldn’t have been able to tell who Richie was talking about if his ear hadn’t started ringing. It turned his stomach. His wound ached. 

It was in his monologue when he hosted _Saturday Night Live_ , one gay pun after another, stretching the boundaries of what cable television would allow. 

Eddie wondered if Myra was watching. The thought struck him suddenly, because he hadn’t thought of her in months. _Hadn’t thought about his wife_ . But they’d watched _Saturday Night Live_ together. Not live, of course, because sleep deprivation could kill you, but the day after, on DVR. 

\--

He ran into Jay by accident. At a party. Eddie thought about parallels. His English 101 class. 

Except, this time, everyone knew Richie and Jay knew each other. How could they not? Before Jay left for LA, they’d been inseparable. Now, they were two, very hesitant kids in a trench coat. 

Richie approached him first, but only after catching Jay cast uncomfortable looks at him across the room. 

“What’s the difference,” Richie asked him as he poured himself a glass of wine, “between a comedian and a lawyer?” 

Jay looked him up and down, nervous. “A lawyer’s funny?” He offered. 

Richie winced. “Harsh,” he said, “but fair.” He clinked his glass against Jay’s. “The punchline was: A lawyer can pay off his student loans.”

“That’s just what they say to get you to law school,” Jay said. He was leaned against the table behind him, not quite looking at Richie. He took a sip of his champagne. 

“Is it weird to be back?” Richie asked. 

“Some things are,” he said, leaving the rest unspoken. 

Richie took a deep breath. “Jay…”

“Trashmouth!” Richie held a finger up to Jay apologetically and whirled around. Eddie sighed. 

Twenty minutes later Richie greeted Jay with a simple, “I’m glad your back. I watched your show-- you did a great job.”

“You could have texted,” Jay said. 

“I’m bad at that. I’m sorry.” 

They clinked their drinks together. Richie didn’t look at Jay as he chugged down his flute of champagne. 

“I had an idea,” Richie said. Jay looked up at him through his eyelashes, his lips still taut around the edge of his glass. “I could use your help on it… If you want to, that is.”

\--

When it happened, Eddie wasn’t prepared. He’d finally settled, finally accepted this small, hazy corner of the universe until the hole in his abdomen swallowed him. 

It didn’t work that way, though. 

It took Eddie a while to realize what was going on. Things were repaired in increments. Bits. Puzzle pieces falling into place. 

“Hey-- How ya doing, man?” Ben asked as soon as Richie picked up the Facetime call. Richie’s face broke into a smile that cracked his face in half. His eyes lit up. He propped his feet up on the coffee table. Eddie wanted to shoo them off. 

“Just dandy,” Richie said. 

“Th--” Ben stammered. “That’s great!” Eddie wondered if he was as taken aback by the sincerity in Richie’s voice as he was. “I called to--”

“Oh my _God_ just give me the phone!” Eddie watched as the camera was fumbled between the two, Ben laughing, and Bev screeching in annoyance. She won. Of course she did-- it’s Bev.

“Trashmouth, I will give you three guesses as to why we called you,” she said. 

“You have Chlamydia and you want me to know I might have it, too?”

She made a buzzer noise. 

“Ben has decided to leave you and become one of my groupies?”

“Are you being dumb on purpose or are you just like this?”

“If you don’t know the answer to that by now I don’t know what to tell you.” 

Bev rolled her eyes. 

“One more guess.” 

“You got _super_ into Taylor Swift this year?” 

“We’re getting married!” She held her left hand up. Richie’s eyes softened at Bev’s smile, the flush on her cheeks, the hunk of diamond on her finger.

“Jesus, Ben, you rob the Tower of London?” 

“Just a Jareds.”

Richie gasped. “He went to Jareds!” 

Eddie hadn’t seen him so happy in all the time he had remembered him. 

\--

That night, Eddie noticed the difference: the wound that was still raw from his death had mostly healed, scar tissue stretching in an inch. Closing it. 

\--

“You sure that’s a good idea, Rich?” the Publicist-Manager was saying. “You only just started writing your own stuff.” The way he held his spoon annoyed Eddie: at the end, like it was fragile, like he was royalty. He continued stirring creamer into his coffee. 

“It wouldn’t just be me,” Richie answered, unwavered. He took a bite of his salad (he was on some kind of health kick-- something about slimming down for the wedding, he’d said that to his mirror that morning). “I know a few other comedians who’d be willing to go in on it, I just need your help convincing networks.” 

“There’s no way you’re getting _this_ \--” he pointed at the pitch with the butt of his spoon, “--greenlit by cable TV.” 

“Then talk to Netflix.” Richie crossed his arms over his chest. “Or Hulu, or whatever other platforms are out there.” He leaned forward. “This is a cool thing. Trust me on this one.” 

The Manager-Agent sighed. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said after a long pause. “Start writing, start nabbing celebrities. Do your part, Rich.”

Richie saluted him. “Aye Aye, captain.” 

\--

“Thank you so much for having us all, Audra. I hope we’re not putting you out.” Bev hugged Bill’s wife like they were old friends-- maybe they were. This was the first time that Eddie was meeting her… It was the first time Richie had agreed to come to one of these things. Richie shifted the wine bottle he’d brought to under his arm as he reached to shake Audra’s hand. 

“Of course you’re not putting me out-- Richie!” She put a hand on his elbow, familiar. Up close, she still looked a lot like Bev. Eddie didn’t see the same _spark_ in her though. No draw. No… No… He didn’t know what to call it, but there was something about Bev, and Richie, and Bill, and Ben, and Mike, something more alive than other people. Something _bright_. 

They ate dinner: Thanksgiving in Bill’s lavish dining room. Every once in a while, Richie’s eyes would wander around the table, as if he were looking for something. _Or someone,_ Eddie thought when copper stared up at him from the change bowl on the credenza. 

And, feeling hollow, he wished he was there too. Actually there, alive and well and helping himself to mashed potatoes and scolding Richie to behave when he makes a dirty joke, and patting Ben on the back when he chokes from laughing, and. And. 

Bev and Richie took care of the dishes while Audra and Bill gave everyone else a tour. No one asked them to, but Bev had already seen the house, and Richie tended to avoid boring formalities so it was the two of them alone in the kitchen. 

“Three months,” Richie said as he dried a dish with an impeccably clean dish towel. “How are ya feeling?” 

“Like I want to eat some damn bread,” she said. “This whole ‘lose ten pounds before the wedding’ thing is unbearable.”

“You look fantastic,” Richie said, “eat a damn roll.” 

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said with feigned dramatics. He just rolled his eyes and flicked her with the towel.

\--

In a year, the wound was where it had been when Eddie had died. Half the size it had been before it started healing. He watched Richie, now, with a sense of relief. 

\--

Richie Tozier’s debut movie will make you laugh, cry, and everything in between -- _The New York Post_

In a stroke of heartfulness, Tozier’s film covers grief, fear, and heartbreak. Oh, and it’s hilarious. -- _Moviereview.com_

It’s a two-hour snooze-fest -- _Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier_

Th-the ending cuh-could have been better -- _William Denbrough_ ( _I don’t even stutter, Rich! Don’t put that on the site._ )

\--

The Q&A panel was more exhausting than Richie had expected. He was sat away from Mike, grouped with the writers, but he still took a picture of Mike’s nametag and posted it to Instagram: _Mike Hanlon_ it read _Writing consultant._ He’d been the one Richie turned to for mythos, and lore about the supernatural, and then he’d somehow ended up being the one that everyone working on the film consulted. 

“I don’t even have a degree in this,” he’d pointed out to Richie once. “I’m hardly qualified.” 

“Bro,” Richie said, “You’re the most qualified-- now tell me everything you know about werewolves.” 

Every time Mike got asked a question, Richie felt his heart swell with pride. Every time someone asked Richie a question, he tried to find a good reason to pass it off to somebody else. 

He was nervous. If Eddie concentrated, he could hear Richie’s heart pounding in his chest. Nearly two years had gone by since he’d slid his manager a pitch across a questionably clean deli table, and now he was here. Grinning, but shaking, trying to pass the jokes off to another comedian, or an actor, or to Mike, his fail safe, because he knew that Mike was bound to give a far more intelligent answer than any dick joke Richie could come up with. But there was one question he couldn’t hand off.

“What made you come up with this idea?” She wasn’t a journalist, just some kid dressed in Doctor Who cosplay. 

Eddie felt a pull on his forehead. He looked down and made eye contact with Abe Lincoln on a shiny, new penny. He closed his eyes. 

“I…” Richie started carefully. He looked to someone else for support, but he had to have known that he was the only one who could answer this one. “Being a kid fucking sucks,” he said. “You’re afraid of everything, you don’t understand how anything works, no one takes you seriously-- And when I was a kid, my response to that was: fine, then I won’t take myself seriously.” He took a sip of his water. The cup nearly slipped out of his sweaty hands. “You deal with so much as a kid, and you don’t really… you don’t usually know how fucked up it was until you’re older. I wanted- I wanted to make something that pointed that out, I guess.” 

\--

_How does it feel to have one of the highest-grossing comedy films?_ Bill’s text that night read. 

_Pretty damn great,_ Richie replied, and Eddie could tell by his smile that he meant it. 

\--

It took Eddie a while to realize he hadn’t died again in a very long time. His wound was almost entirely healed. It was smaller than his fist now, just a shadow of the injury it had been before (the one Richie had pressed his hand against like he was praying). 

\--

“Well,” Ben called as Richie stepped into the dressing room. “If it isn’t the most eligible bachelor in the wedding party!” 

“Just name a bridesmaid,” Richie said without looking up from his phone. “Okay, Bill’s on his way with the cake now. Mike, you have the rings?”

“All set,” Mike replied. 

“And I,” Richie said, “am sure that everything is going smoothly on Bev’s end. We’re right on schedule.”

\--

Eddie had never cried at weddings, not even his own. But watching Bev walk down the aisle and take Ben’s hand… 

He watched them make up for 27 lost years and he wanted to weep. They could have had so much more if It hadn’t gotten in the way, but they still won. Some of them still won.

He looked at Richie, done up in his tux, and his heart hurt in a way it hadn’t since he’d been alive. He burned with a _want_ different than just wanting to be able to move things, or walk, or be seen. This time, he just wanted. Wanted life, and Richie, and to have known about everything before it was too damn late to do anything about it. 

\--

Richie danced with Bev and she put her head on his shoulder. Kept her eyes closed.

_Trust,_ Eddie thought, and he was grateful she ended up here, like this. 

“You look horrible,” Richie told her, and she laughed, smacked him gently on the arm. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m happy for you, too,” Bev said. “You seem… better.”

And he did: he didn’t look tired all the time, didn’t look defeated. Didn’t drink himself to sleep most nights anymore. 

“I am,” Richie said, and Eddie knew it was the truth. 

\--

“Are you still here?” Eddie froze. Richie wasn’t looking at him, but Eddie’s ears were ringing, loud. Deafeningly loud. He could still hear, though, when Richie spoke-- his voice came in just over the noise, nearly solid. “I… You need to go, man. Can you… Everyone… We’ll be okay. If that’s why you’re here-- I’m okay. Really, so if you wanna go quiet into that dark night… Go into the light, or whatever. Do it. Don’t, like--” He took a deep breath. “You should go. You’ll be okay.”

Eddie sighed. Quiet. He looked at Richie-- really _looked_ at Richie. Richie with his ugly name brand clothes, and his crooked smile, and his ever-present five-o’clock shadow. Richie in a hotel room, tux discarded on a chair. Richie with a popular movie, and good friends, and a real smile. Richie. Richie Richie Richie. 

What more could Eddie ask of himself? 

Eddie wasn’t sure if it had been Richie holding him there, himself holding him there, or some combination of the two. Maybe he needed permission. Maybe he needed to be told not to be scared. (The way Richie used to tell him-- with a hand on his back, and a puffed out chest, and a funny voice. _Live a little, Eddie Spaghetti_ ).

But whatever it was, it worked. He felt the wound heal: a warm sensation in his abdomen, like drinking hot tea when you’re cold. Like feeling loved, and existing, and watching your best friend do what he always swore he was going to do one day. 

When the light came, it wasn’t like the deadlights. Not sudden, or cold, or abrasive. Not Derry. 

The light came, and Eddie didn’t feel scared when the world around him disappeared, got washed out and away. Instead, he stood: took in the warm white, and the empty surroundings, and realized, with a bittersweet triumph,

_I did it._

“Hey.” Eddie recognized the voice that came from behind him even though he hadn’t heard it in a very long time. Even though he’d never heard it quite the way it was. He turned. 

Stan “The Man” Uris was standing behind him. He was older, more grown up— but it was him. It was him. It was. 

Eddie didn’t respond, he just pulled him into a hug. Buried his face in his shoulder. 

It was the first time he’d touched someone in years. Held someone’s shoulder and made contact. 

“Hey, Eddie,” Stan laughed. Eddie finally pulled away, but he kept a hand on Stan’s elbow, a point of contact, like he might fade away.

Stan wasn’t glowing, exactly, but he seemed _bright_. He had one hand tucked into the pocket of his slacks. If Eddie strained, he could hear the faint sound of bird calls on the wind. He didn’t need to strain, though, because Stan was standing in this white space with him, smiling in that same, restrained way he used to when they were kids. 

“You’re--”

“I know.” 

Eddie swallowed. “We killed It,” he said. Then, “They killed It.” 

“I know,” Stan said. “I felt it. I felt it when you died, too. I’ve been waiting.” 

“You’ve been waiting?” 

Stan snorted. “I knew you’d freak out if you woke up here alone,” he said. “I just didn’t think it would take you so long.”

“I’m sorry.” 

Stan cuffed him on the back of the head and threw an arm around Eddie’s shoulder. “Don’t apologize. Let’s just go home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Pheatherswriting on here for helping me out so much with this fic, I super appreciate it, man. 
> 
> The title is from Used 2 Be a Romantic by Field Medic.
> 
> This fic is the culmination of about 3 months of writing, scrapping, editing, writing some more and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. If you liked it too, maybe consider dropping a comment or some kudos-- they mean a lot.
> 
> Also! for any additional Questions, comments, concerns, or if you just wanna talk, come chat with me on tumblr @dredfulhapiness .


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